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eye_of_a_catPart #2 of the still unnamed AU-for-Atonement Minbari angst extravaganza.
The darkness at the heart of the candle-flame danced erratically, refusing to stay still long enough for Delenn to lose herself within it. She had been sitting in the same position for hours, looking at nothing but the candle, trying to find the peace deep within herself that would remind her she was connected to the universe; but the flame would not stay still, and the universe would not listen, and she felt so alone.
For as long as she could remember, she had had something to provide purpose and solace at times like this: Valen, the Nine, her place on Babylon 5, and then more recently John Sheridan. Now, Valen seemed further away than ever, more distant from the moment she realised how close she had been to the reality of him. The Nine were no more, dissolving into bickering castes along with the rest of Minbar, and there had been no Chosen One to lead them since she stormed out of the Council chambers with the remaining Religious caste Satai filing silently behind her. She no longer had a place on Babylon 5, and she no longer had John, and now even this candle would not bring her peace.
Sometimes, when she looked up, Lennier would be kneeling beside her. Sometimes she would hear words of prayer and know they were his, and for a moment she could turn away from the candle because he was with her, and he would not leave.
She made him tell her what she had done, again and again. She made him say she was responsible for the Black Star, and still there was no anger in his voice, nothing but devotion in his eyes. Even when she made him list the names of those in his family and clan who died, even when she made him say she had killed them, he would not hate her. He only stayed by her side until she could no longer speak, and when she held him close his face was already wet with tears.
Slowly, she became aware of a figure at her side, and a voice saying her name. Lennier had brought her food again. He did this every few hours, and every few hours she refused, as she did now. This time, however, he was more insistent, and knelt down beside her when she shook her head. “It has been nearly ten days. You must eat something.”
“Later.” Her gaze returned to the candle, now flickering wildly.
She heard him sigh. “You should at least drink water,” he said, and when she did not respond he pressed the glass into her palm, curling her fingers around it. She drank a few mouthfuls, feeling his eyes watch her, and placed the water back on the tray. He would not let her starve herself, she knew that, but otherwise he would still do anything she asked of him, and she wanted to ask even though there was nothing he could do to help. Bring him back to me, Lennier. Beg him, lie to him, threaten him, do anything – just bring him back to me, because I cannot live like this any longer.
The flame blurred as tears filled her eyes again, and she bowed her head so Lennier wouldn’t have to see. Useless, of course; he always saw, he always knew. She felt his hand lightly resting on her forearm. “I should not have interrupted your mourning. I… I’m sorry, Delenn.”
“My mourning. Yes.” It made sense, she supposed. A loss, of something she had treasured more than her own life. A death, too, although she could not be certain yet what had died. The mourning rituals would be appropriate for that. But… “I have no right to mourn now,” she said.
“I would disagree. If anyone –“
“No. Our people should mourn, the humans should mourn. I caused so many deaths. Now John knows this.” And now Lennier knew it as well, however reluctant he was to accept it, and however little he understood. Her voice caught in her throat. “I only wish I could explain.”
She had never wanted him to know she was capable of such a thing, and she dismissed, before it could take hold and grow, the suspicion that he already had. He was too young, too innocent. He would never understand how she had been able to call for the deaths of billions. She did not want him to.
He waited, silently, for her to continue, and she closed her eyes and felt the candle’s glow in the dark. “I did not doubt,” she said. “I never knew how to doubt. I believed since I was very young that one day, I would stand among the Nine. I knew I was born for this, and those around me knew it too. I was taught how to speak for my clan, and my caste, and my people. I was a tool of the universe, creating the future, and my words and thoughts were the blade of that tool. They were not mine to doubt.”
Teachers and priests bowing their heads for a child’s words. The white robes of an acolyte, lit by moonlight on her last night on Minbar, barely out of Temple and already sent to serve the Nine. Dukhat’s voice saying her name.
“The first time I stood before the Grey Council, I was afraid to speak. They were chosen by the universe just as I was, and yet they were wrong, and I was terrified of saying so. I spoke what I knew to be right, even so.” She held out her hand to the candle, palm outwards, feeling how close it was to burning her. “When I gave the order to attack, I spoke for our people, and for the universe, and for Dukhat himself.”
“But you doubted this decision afterwards.” Lennier’s voice surprised her for a moment, although she always knew he was there. “When you spoke to Morann.”
“I began learning how to doubt.” She half-smiled at a memory which was far from light. “I was… not a good student. I would tell the warriors I was unsure, and they would show me our people dying and dead at human hands, and then my anger would return and I would not need to doubt. It was so alien to me, learning that my thoughts were not always the universe’s thoughts, that what I wanted was not always what should be. I have tried to teach you everything I knew, but I am glad you never believed what I once believed.”
For a moment, the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his face. “Yes,” he said.
~*~
There were still Minbari war cruisers outside Babylon 5, and he wouldn’t have had that any other way. Clarke’s forces would be here in a second if they knew those ships were gone. Delenn said they’d stay for as long as she told them to, along with the White Stars stationed in the area, which at least meant no last-minute strategies before they took the fight to Earth. The plan stayed the same: the other races would provide some support where it was needed, but the fleet to retake Earth would be made up of human ships. As long as Delenn could continue all her diplomatic work from Minbar, she didn’t even need to be here.
But he wanted her back, damn it. Even if it couldn’t change a thing, he wanted her to be standing here now to explain what she’d done and why she’d done it. Two years of war, of seeing death all around him, of refusing to believe in an undefeatable enemy until it was right there in a fleet of those ghostly blue war cruisers, and they couldn’t even lock on to fire. Two years of thinking this couldn’t be happening, it wasn’t possible all the Minbari wanted this, it just wasn’t possible, and then the first one he saw face-to-face wanted peace and maybe, maybe there was a chance, even after Lennon was killed, when the Minbari let him go. Isil’zha. The future.
But in that future they didn’t stop, and they didn’t slow down, and Earth paid for any minor victory ten times over. They got closer and closer to Earth, and ISN showed Minbari ships at Proxima and then Io, but the worst thing was when there weren’t any cameras at all, when an outpost just went quiet. EarthGov tried to negotiate, and then tried to surrender, but the Minbari wouldn’t listen. Two years of this. Two years. And all the time, those were her orders.
I am sorry, she’d said, I am so sorry, her voice breaking up into sobs. I could not see through my anger, I could not believe he was dead, I betrayed everything he taught me in that one moment, and it was too late to take back my words.
Early in the war, they’d been told that the reason the Minbari were only targeting military outposts was because of their caste system, and that they’d come back for everyone else when the warriors were dead. He’d found it difficult to believe even then, and more recently he’d questioned it again, fighting alongside Minbari against the Shadows – they were capable of a lot, but calculated genocide against an inferior enemy was difficult to imagine. Now, he believed it.
I will not ask you to forgive me, she’d said. I cannot ask that. I only ask you to remember what we have built together, and hope that the things I have done cannot destroy this future.
The Rangers were still under their joint command, and would stay that way. The Minbari war cruisers were still defending the station. He’d see her again, he’d have to, and he wasn’t about to throw away everything they’d worked for. None of that was in question.
Only at the moment, standing alone in his office after Ivanova had made it graphically clear to everyone that the captain was to be left the hell alone right now, he wanted those Minbari cruisers – and all the Minbari ships, and all the Minbari – gone.
~*~
Lennier watched her without speaking, without needing to speak, just as he had once watched the chrysalis during her transformation. He had been afraid for her then, in case she or Kosh were wrong, but they had not been – or she had not, or Valen had not – and he could not stand in the way of prophecy, even for her. He could only watch her in silence, or pray, unsure whether she could hear him, and hope. He did the same now.
She knelt by the candle, still, her eyes closed and her hands clasped in her lap. She looked like a statue – this creature, this half-alien, half-Minbari creation, this sacrifice. And was she any less so because she had carved this from her own flesh rather than stone? She had become what she intended to become, and this had not changed because of John Sheridan’s words. The prophecy which foretold this also said she was destined for Sheridan, and so it would be, once time enough had passed for him to accept her once again. She had not failed.
“Why will you not hate me?” she said without opening her eyes.
He reached out to her, hesitated, curled his fingers into his palm. “Would you wish me to?”
She almost laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “You should. I killed your family, did I not?”
“You gave an order,” he told her, as he had told her before. “Our people chose to follow. Those on the Black Star were willing to give their lives.”
“And without my order, they would be alive now.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “They would be alive now.”
She opened her eyes, and looked away from her candle. “Then what would you ask of me, for what I have done?”
He remembered mountains, and how the city huddled against the rock like summer snow. He remembered the sound of running footsteps on the temple courtyards when he saw his family, and of how he remembered just in time, and skidded to a halt and bowed the way he was taught. He remembered a brother, sisters, older than he was but not too old to play, and his parents placing their hands on his shoulders to tell him without words that they were proud of him. He remembered being told they were dead, and of how the snow had frozen the tears on his face. He remembered the city, white as mourning robes. “I would ask,” he said, “that you came with me to see Sekarr, now that it is winter.”
She stared at him as though afraid he had suddenly gone mad. “Why?”
“It is beautiful.” She had still not eaten the food he brought earlier, and so he busied himself with gathering it back onto the tray, not meeting her eyes. “If you were following the mourning rituals, it would be necessary for you to stay here. But since you are not following them, as you said, it will do no harm to be elsewhere for a time. You will come?”
She studied his face carefully for a long time, but she did not make him look up at her. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
“Then it is done.” He bowed, quickly, and left before she could say anything more.
The darkness at the heart of the candle-flame danced erratically, refusing to stay still long enough for Delenn to lose herself within it. She had been sitting in the same position for hours, looking at nothing but the candle, trying to find the peace deep within herself that would remind her she was connected to the universe; but the flame would not stay still, and the universe would not listen, and she felt so alone.
For as long as she could remember, she had had something to provide purpose and solace at times like this: Valen, the Nine, her place on Babylon 5, and then more recently John Sheridan. Now, Valen seemed further away than ever, more distant from the moment she realised how close she had been to the reality of him. The Nine were no more, dissolving into bickering castes along with the rest of Minbar, and there had been no Chosen One to lead them since she stormed out of the Council chambers with the remaining Religious caste Satai filing silently behind her. She no longer had a place on Babylon 5, and she no longer had John, and now even this candle would not bring her peace.
Sometimes, when she looked up, Lennier would be kneeling beside her. Sometimes she would hear words of prayer and know they were his, and for a moment she could turn away from the candle because he was with her, and he would not leave.
She made him tell her what she had done, again and again. She made him say she was responsible for the Black Star, and still there was no anger in his voice, nothing but devotion in his eyes. Even when she made him list the names of those in his family and clan who died, even when she made him say she had killed them, he would not hate her. He only stayed by her side until she could no longer speak, and when she held him close his face was already wet with tears.
Slowly, she became aware of a figure at her side, and a voice saying her name. Lennier had brought her food again. He did this every few hours, and every few hours she refused, as she did now. This time, however, he was more insistent, and knelt down beside her when she shook her head. “It has been nearly ten days. You must eat something.”
“Later.” Her gaze returned to the candle, now flickering wildly.
She heard him sigh. “You should at least drink water,” he said, and when she did not respond he pressed the glass into her palm, curling her fingers around it. She drank a few mouthfuls, feeling his eyes watch her, and placed the water back on the tray. He would not let her starve herself, she knew that, but otherwise he would still do anything she asked of him, and she wanted to ask even though there was nothing he could do to help. Bring him back to me, Lennier. Beg him, lie to him, threaten him, do anything – just bring him back to me, because I cannot live like this any longer.
The flame blurred as tears filled her eyes again, and she bowed her head so Lennier wouldn’t have to see. Useless, of course; he always saw, he always knew. She felt his hand lightly resting on her forearm. “I should not have interrupted your mourning. I… I’m sorry, Delenn.”
“My mourning. Yes.” It made sense, she supposed. A loss, of something she had treasured more than her own life. A death, too, although she could not be certain yet what had died. The mourning rituals would be appropriate for that. But… “I have no right to mourn now,” she said.
“I would disagree. If anyone –“
“No. Our people should mourn, the humans should mourn. I caused so many deaths. Now John knows this.” And now Lennier knew it as well, however reluctant he was to accept it, and however little he understood. Her voice caught in her throat. “I only wish I could explain.”
She had never wanted him to know she was capable of such a thing, and she dismissed, before it could take hold and grow, the suspicion that he already had. He was too young, too innocent. He would never understand how she had been able to call for the deaths of billions. She did not want him to.
He waited, silently, for her to continue, and she closed her eyes and felt the candle’s glow in the dark. “I did not doubt,” she said. “I never knew how to doubt. I believed since I was very young that one day, I would stand among the Nine. I knew I was born for this, and those around me knew it too. I was taught how to speak for my clan, and my caste, and my people. I was a tool of the universe, creating the future, and my words and thoughts were the blade of that tool. They were not mine to doubt.”
Teachers and priests bowing their heads for a child’s words. The white robes of an acolyte, lit by moonlight on her last night on Minbar, barely out of Temple and already sent to serve the Nine. Dukhat’s voice saying her name.
“The first time I stood before the Grey Council, I was afraid to speak. They were chosen by the universe just as I was, and yet they were wrong, and I was terrified of saying so. I spoke what I knew to be right, even so.” She held out her hand to the candle, palm outwards, feeling how close it was to burning her. “When I gave the order to attack, I spoke for our people, and for the universe, and for Dukhat himself.”
“But you doubted this decision afterwards.” Lennier’s voice surprised her for a moment, although she always knew he was there. “When you spoke to Morann.”
“I began learning how to doubt.” She half-smiled at a memory which was far from light. “I was… not a good student. I would tell the warriors I was unsure, and they would show me our people dying and dead at human hands, and then my anger would return and I would not need to doubt. It was so alien to me, learning that my thoughts were not always the universe’s thoughts, that what I wanted was not always what should be. I have tried to teach you everything I knew, but I am glad you never believed what I once believed.”
For a moment, the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his face. “Yes,” he said.
There were still Minbari war cruisers outside Babylon 5, and he wouldn’t have had that any other way. Clarke’s forces would be here in a second if they knew those ships were gone. Delenn said they’d stay for as long as she told them to, along with the White Stars stationed in the area, which at least meant no last-minute strategies before they took the fight to Earth. The plan stayed the same: the other races would provide some support where it was needed, but the fleet to retake Earth would be made up of human ships. As long as Delenn could continue all her diplomatic work from Minbar, she didn’t even need to be here.
But he wanted her back, damn it. Even if it couldn’t change a thing, he wanted her to be standing here now to explain what she’d done and why she’d done it. Two years of war, of seeing death all around him, of refusing to believe in an undefeatable enemy until it was right there in a fleet of those ghostly blue war cruisers, and they couldn’t even lock on to fire. Two years of thinking this couldn’t be happening, it wasn’t possible all the Minbari wanted this, it just wasn’t possible, and then the first one he saw face-to-face wanted peace and maybe, maybe there was a chance, even after Lennon was killed, when the Minbari let him go. Isil’zha. The future.
But in that future they didn’t stop, and they didn’t slow down, and Earth paid for any minor victory ten times over. They got closer and closer to Earth, and ISN showed Minbari ships at Proxima and then Io, but the worst thing was when there weren’t any cameras at all, when an outpost just went quiet. EarthGov tried to negotiate, and then tried to surrender, but the Minbari wouldn’t listen. Two years of this. Two years. And all the time, those were her orders.
I am sorry, she’d said, I am so sorry, her voice breaking up into sobs. I could not see through my anger, I could not believe he was dead, I betrayed everything he taught me in that one moment, and it was too late to take back my words.
Early in the war, they’d been told that the reason the Minbari were only targeting military outposts was because of their caste system, and that they’d come back for everyone else when the warriors were dead. He’d found it difficult to believe even then, and more recently he’d questioned it again, fighting alongside Minbari against the Shadows – they were capable of a lot, but calculated genocide against an inferior enemy was difficult to imagine. Now, he believed it.
I will not ask you to forgive me, she’d said. I cannot ask that. I only ask you to remember what we have built together, and hope that the things I have done cannot destroy this future.
The Rangers were still under their joint command, and would stay that way. The Minbari war cruisers were still defending the station. He’d see her again, he’d have to, and he wasn’t about to throw away everything they’d worked for. None of that was in question.
Only at the moment, standing alone in his office after Ivanova had made it graphically clear to everyone that the captain was to be left the hell alone right now, he wanted those Minbari cruisers – and all the Minbari ships, and all the Minbari – gone.
Lennier watched her without speaking, without needing to speak, just as he had once watched the chrysalis during her transformation. He had been afraid for her then, in case she or Kosh were wrong, but they had not been – or she had not, or Valen had not – and he could not stand in the way of prophecy, even for her. He could only watch her in silence, or pray, unsure whether she could hear him, and hope. He did the same now.
She knelt by the candle, still, her eyes closed and her hands clasped in her lap. She looked like a statue – this creature, this half-alien, half-Minbari creation, this sacrifice. And was she any less so because she had carved this from her own flesh rather than stone? She had become what she intended to become, and this had not changed because of John Sheridan’s words. The prophecy which foretold this also said she was destined for Sheridan, and so it would be, once time enough had passed for him to accept her once again. She had not failed.
“Why will you not hate me?” she said without opening her eyes.
He reached out to her, hesitated, curled his fingers into his palm. “Would you wish me to?”
She almost laughed. “Maybe,” she said. “You should. I killed your family, did I not?”
“You gave an order,” he told her, as he had told her before. “Our people chose to follow. Those on the Black Star were willing to give their lives.”
“And without my order, they would be alive now.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “They would be alive now.”
She opened her eyes, and looked away from her candle. “Then what would you ask of me, for what I have done?”
He remembered mountains, and how the city huddled against the rock like summer snow. He remembered the sound of running footsteps on the temple courtyards when he saw his family, and of how he remembered just in time, and skidded to a halt and bowed the way he was taught. He remembered a brother, sisters, older than he was but not too old to play, and his parents placing their hands on his shoulders to tell him without words that they were proud of him. He remembered being told they were dead, and of how the snow had frozen the tears on his face. He remembered the city, white as mourning robes. “I would ask,” he said, “that you came with me to see Sekarr, now that it is winter.”
She stared at him as though afraid he had suddenly gone mad. “Why?”
“It is beautiful.” She had still not eaten the food he brought earlier, and so he busied himself with gathering it back onto the tray, not meeting her eyes. “If you were following the mourning rituals, it would be necessary for you to stay here. But since you are not following them, as you said, it will do no harm to be elsewhere for a time. You will come?”
She studied his face carefully for a long time, but she did not make him look up at her. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
“Then it is done.” He bowed, quickly, and left before she could say anything more.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-18 09:33 pm (UTC)I love this story. I'm so grateful that you're writing it.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-19 04:21 pm (UTC)(You didn't think Lennier's request was out of character for him, did you? It seemed to fit when I started writing, but then I got less sure about it - asking her to do something, even when it's for her sake, isn't something he does very often. (And even when he does, like in Comes the Inquisitor, it's more like asking her to reconsider rather than asking her to do anything active.) On the other hand, this situation is difficult for him in a different way to those others, so maybe.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-20 09:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-20 12:26 pm (UTC)*squeaks happily* Yes, and thank you very much!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-20 08:58 pm (UTC)Teachers and priests bowing their heads for a child’s words.
Yep, that's Delenn's life. She was probably insufferable as a child, or bearable only by virtue of being so cute, which in a way is worse.
Bring him back to me, Lennier. Beg him, lie to him, threaten him, do anything – just bring him back to me, because I cannot live like this any longer.
Even though Delenn doesn't say this out loud, of course Lennier would hear it. It surprises me that he doesn't act on it in some way, but he's done surprising things before.
For a moment, the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his face. “Yes,” he said.
Of course I'm going to read a great deal into that smile, since I'm convinced that they have a basic theological disagreement. Or more than one.
Sheridan is quite good here, there was no reason to worry. When he's angry, he doesn't sit around, he makes things happen. At the end of the chapter, I find myself wondering what dramatic thing Sheridan is about to do, and convinced that there's going to be something. I wouldn't be surprised if he really does order those Minbari ships gone, and then find himself in a crisis he's going to have to resolve.
Oh, I forgot one of Sheridan's Basic Moral Principles - there'a a right and a wrong, and good people always do the right thing. And - like he says about Lennier - when you do something wrong, a price has to be paid. In this AU, I'd expect him to say - or at least think - pretty much that same exact line about Delenn. That's why it makes sense that he wants the Minbari ships gone at the end.
The last scene just warms my little shippery heart. Yep, that's the dynamic - she leans and leans on him, all the time saying - and to herself as well - how in love she is with Sheridan. Lennier's request seems right to me. He wants to be able to take care of her, so taking her to his home, or to a place that's meaningful to him, would be just right.
And this is the end of what I saw in draft form. So, I can't wait to see what happens next!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-21 12:25 pm (UTC)I get the feeling she wasn't told 'no' very often. Or ever.
It surprises me that he doesn't act on it in some way, but he's done surprising things before.
Yeah, and the only reason I could think of for him not taking action here - that he still believes it's temporary and Sheridan will forgive her (and probably that if Sheridan doesn't know her/love her enough to do that, then he doesn't deserve her anyway) - is based on 'prophecy says so', which won't work so well for what I've vaguely got planned later on. Maybe he'll have to act then.
Sheridan originally was going to send the Minbari ships away there, but then I thought the only way he could do that was to have the White Stars protecting the station instead, which are just as Minbari and so wouldn't be any better. But he really does need to do something Minbari-related and drastic. Oooh, wait, idea... *starts scribbling down notes manically*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-21 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-21 05:13 pm (UTC)Anyway, it's currently Part 2 of... a lot :) I'm not sure exactly how long it's going to be, but there'll be quite a few more chapters yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-21 06:36 pm (UTC)Whew! I look forward to the rest of it, in that case. Carry on, then!